Taming a Hurricane
by stormyheavens
Summary: In Sindria, it's come for Sinbad, stay for Sinbad. With Enne, it's come for a workaholic minister slash undercover master assassin, and plunge the entire country into an ever-escalating spiral of chaos. Love is for the brave? Ja'far begs to differ.


Yo! So, Odyssey meets Legally Blonde meets the Little Mermaid meets Magi. Haha, not really. I just needed a break from the grimdark that PoF ended up being. This is gonna be a long-fic, three arcs and lots of senseless hilarity.

Try giving Enne a Russian accent, btw. So worth it.

* * *

There were, Enne decided, better ways of being true to herself than stalking a pair of maids.

There were also better ways to follow her heart than run from home in the dead of night with guards hot on her tail and covertly sneak onto a boat that would take her half across the world, but what was life without a little adventure? Besides, things had a way of working out for those brave enough to leave their comfort zone and fight for their true love! Or so she'd heard.

But after many, _many_ months of contemplation, Enne decided that the only way her dreams were going to come true, was if she set off on the sacred journey alone, instead of waiting for the currents to throw him her way again. The seas were fickle and the goddesses of the deep evil and twisted, there was no way of telling if the deities would ever let him wander into her holy realm again, even if by accident.

 _Especially_ by accident.

Therefore, it only made sense that Enne should make her way to him instead. No matter what setbacks she may face along the way.

Case in point, she had successfully fled her hometown without any the guards, sentries and even her personal escort noticing. Much. Anyway. It didn't count if they didn't know where she was going. And she had boarded a ship without outing herself, her goals or abilities. Had survived a _month_ of sailing even when it turned out ships gave her worse motion sickness than grabbing onto a frustrated whale's fin at full speed. And even with all that, she'd _still_ managed to reach her destination without her crazy family tracking her down.

It had to be a sign. This was _it_. Even the deep sea deities were on her side, as little as that meant. True love always prevailed!

Besides, how could the forces of the universe not be with her, when the origins of their divine romance dated all the way back to her childhood days? He'd come, like a Great White Shark, sharp teeth at full display and a spark that promised _utter termination_ , to save his hapless friend from the hands of the Coral Mermaids clan.

Enne had been nothing but an inconsequential bystander, but he'd stopped for her alone. If a hurricane could freeze mid-land-conquering, then that was what happened. Everything stopped, the waves, the currents, _her heart_ , when he looked at her, when he _addressed her_ : "How far to the Amaranthine Reef?" In that moment, she knew, this would be the man she'd marry one day, the man she'd spend the rest of her life with in the eternal land of sunshines, rainbows and turtles.

But as life would have it, nothing could ever go smoothly, and his luckless, _idiot_ friend had earned the devotion of the Coral Mermaids and nobody sane ever wanted the mindless devotion of the Coral Mermaids. So they ran for it, and Enne was forced to part with the boy, who she almost forgot about soon enough anyway, and suffer the rest of her childhood out of pure boredom.

However, one could never truly erase their First Love from their heart, especially not a Siren, and the flood of feelings swarmed her again when a storm brought him right to her doorstep. Old feelings rekindled, and her love rejuvenated, especially after she started noticing the signs the occasionally kind deities had left behind:

First, in spite of all the odds, they met again — and more, he remembered her face. String of fate, check.

Second, her father was _not_ impressed with his conduct, to say the least, and became even less so when her dumb cousin spilled that she was madly in love with a human, when it wasn't even a muscular human. Forbidden love, check.

And last, but by far the most important, he once made the ultimate bitch, the Coral Mermaid Princess Jenneris, run away _screaming_.

Holy demon of the southern seas, he was _perfect_. Enne wanted to hug him, kiss him, squeeze him and love him, in a way no other siren had ever done before. Because she was amazing, and because she was kind, and because she desperately wanted to see the sadness in his eyes gone.

But first, they needed to at _least_ communicate for more than a sentence at the time. And maybe, just maybe, she needed to introduce herself properly this time around. Getting tongue-tied in front of the love of her life was unbecoming for any siren worth her voice, and Enne had worked her ass off to hone her to perfection.

Hence, stalking the maids.

But, er. Maybe stalking was too strong of a word. Covertly following from a distance. With a sash over her head to protect her from the sun and hide her face, just in case somebody back home somehow figured out where she was going and decided to come looking. Even among sirens, Sindria was a curious place.

Except, even if they did, they wouldn't be expecting her to adapt to humans and their habits. Which made her plan flawless! Growing up with a tail had made her biased, had made them all biased, but according to the legends and ancient myths, even pureblood sirens could walk on land when they so wished, and after Enne had stopped panicking about her perfectly maintained tail shrinking and started using her brains, she'd realized that having feet wasn't so bad after all.

Even if it was frustratingly slow.

Oh, the things she did for love. The love of her life had better shower her precious tail in kisses the moment she found him, or all of this would've been for nothing.

Not for the first time, Enne wistfully glanced up toward the castle, distant and up on the hill, and fixed her sash. _Maybe I could ask somebody if there is a river going up there. Sweetwater is yuck, swimming upstream is worse, it always gets so shallow, but I can't take this anymore! I want to eat something! Edible something!_

Because, really. Humans were _weird_. They cooked fish, wore layers and layers of these things called clothes when walking in the sun was hotter than swimming in the caves near the volcanoes, and sometimes they even _grilled_ fish. As in, effectively set it on fire. Enne had taken one bite for politeness' sake and gagged.

Worse, there were so many humans in this thing called marketplace, along with other addictive, mouth-watering scents, she couldn't even _smell_ him and make her trip shorter. It didn't make _sense_.

She hadn't even finished the thought process when a scent assaulted her senses, standing out even among thousands of other delicious scents she'd never felt before. Stronger, and spicier. It had a little bit of fire in it, kind of like lava right before cooling off, and raw meat. Enne patted her stomach gently as it rumbled, reminding her that the last time she'd eaten any real food had been just before she'd gotten onto that lousy boat, and her stomach complained even louder.

 _If I'd known it'd be like this, I never would've tried that stupid diet._

She sniffed the air again, mouth watering. Weighed her options, but found herself changing direction long before deciding on the pros and cons. _Father always said, you can't swim on an empty stomach._

 _Wow. Wonder when I started taking his advice._

Not that it mattered. She'd never smelled anything this tasty before. And her worn, ravenous stomach _begged_ for it. Who the hell was she to argue her instincts?

After what felt like years of walking in random directions, merciless torture on her poor, underdeveloped leg muscles and decades of living on nothing but fucking plankton diet, she caught first sight of her long-awaited goal.

Red, white and gold, and beyond it, raw fish impaled on sticks stuck in the ground, only waiting to be swallowed.

In her starved daze, Enne didn't see the golden plate armor for what it was, nor the red eyes of a beast all the books warned her to stay away from. Nor did she notice the sheathed sword at his hip. All she saw was her fated snack, unfairly munched on by a powerhouse twice her weight, which, all in all, made her choice of action pretty darned easy.

She flexed her muscles, and _pounced_.

* * *

Masrur didn't usually eat that far out of the castle. The cooks there usually made enough to satiate his needs, and even more so whenever Ja'far threw everyone out of the kitchen to make something himself. Those meals, he never missed.

But Ja'far had been busy, tired and stressed lately, and Pisti grabbed both him and Sharrkan by the ear and refused to let go until they promised they wouldn't add to it, as if Ja'far's unhealthy amounts of stress were caused by anything other than their crazy king. But Masrur had agreed, and Sharrkan had agreed, and just as a precaution, they'd both taken to finishing their meals whenever Ja'far wasn't near the kitchen.

Game of chance, work took him near the docks today, and he'd decided that maybe, just maybe, he'd take care of his own meal for the day. It had seemed like a pretty good idea. Until some random punk tried to _steal_ it.

Eyes narrowing a fraction, he caught the thin wrist into an iron grip, before the unlucky thief could get his hand anywhere near his fish.

Pale fingers twitched uselessly, inches away from grabbing the wooden stick, while the face hidden under a checkered shawl turned on him. Thickly lashed eyes peered through, blood red and burning with the kind of rage he'd only ever attribute to a haughty hunter losing its hard earned spoil. Before bursting into crocodile tears.

"You _meanie_!"

Masrur blinked, but the image remained the same. Checkered shawl, wrapped around a tearful face. Long teal hair cascading down the naked back like a waterfall. Remnants of something that looked an awful lot like fish scales, only a shade darker than her hair, trailing along the skin of her arms and neck in an elegant curve that cupped her breasts, leaving very little to imagination. And when he looked down, it only got worse.

"How is this fair?" she cried, and the melodic wail identified her as a siren, and already, Masrur was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.

Fish-girl tried to rip her wrist free, to no avail. Dropped on her knees, and began to sob.

"Why you?" she wailed. "Of all humans I could've found, why did _you_ have to be the first? Why did you have to be the one to find me in this pathetic state?"

Masrur blinked, for he didn't really remember if he'd ever met this particular fish-girl, but he would've rather left those memories buried, even if he had. Sin's underwater adventures were better left buried, and maybe it wasn't too much to hope that whoever this girl was, she'd ended up in Sindria purely by accident.

Though luck, his gut said.

"I tried _so hard_ , okay?" the girl sobbed. "I took all those etiquette classes when all I wanted was to go cave exploring. I trained my voice to near perfection! I worked sooo hard to keep my skin spotless and my face pretty and I even kept up with that insane diet! Did you know, living on plankton diet is _messed up,_ okay!? They're yucky, and after a few days they lose their taste, and for all the calories I had to keep track of, I would've been better off living on algae alone, buuuut noooo! Plankton died, fucking plankton diet, for _months_ , so I could look perfect, so I could _be_ perfect, and all that torture? For WHAT? For this? For a life where I'm not even allowed to take a single bite of proper food? This is _not_ life! I will _not_ condone to this universe's rules, no matter what you think! I will have that bite of fish, and I will have it now! Do you understand!?"

Slowly, Masrur nodded.

"Then let me go!"

He did. Wondered why, almost immediately, because that just now was _his_ hard-earned food that she'd snatched, but given the glare he received the moment he'd taken a breath to ask, he decided he'd rather not be on the receiving end of another rant.

Instead, he watched her shove the shawl out of the way and swallow a fish in a single bite; head, tail, bone, all in one go, and against better judgement, asked, "Is plankton diet that bad?"

Another sniff, and the fish-girl nodded, wiping the tears with one hand. "You have no idea." She glanced at him, dead serious, eyes full of tears. "Have you ever tried to chase a squid and got a blast of that ugly ink right in your face?"

Masrur shook his head.

"Lucky. It's a little like that. _Nasty_. But you get squid ink blasted in your face once, unless if you're really dumb enough to try your luck a second time. Planktons you gotta eat again and again and again, three times a day, for three months, and there's no added skincare benefit. I'm telling you, it's _awful_." Teeth chomped into another piece of raw fish, and this time, Masrur was pretty sure the tears rolling down her cheeks were tears of joy. "Oh dear, this salmon is pure bliss. _Thank you_."

Masrur nodded. Glanced at the scales that were now visibly fading from her skin, and tried not to let the amusement show. If he remembered this right, things were going to get very entertaining, very fast. But for courtesy's sake, "You should wear clothes," he said.

The girl stared at him. Blinked down at her naked form, brows furrowed. "But it's hot?" she tried. Frowned at his utter lack of reaction. "But it _is_. It's stuffy, and it's hot, and the clothes are itchy… and why do humans wear so many layers? I swear, I saw a girl walking with a total of four of them, was she trying to kill herself? Don't get me wrong, I like looking pretty too, but I don't want to die for fashion, okay?"

Well, in that case, so be it. Not like Masrur cared all that much to begin with. But apparently she did, because after a moment of thought, she began to frown again.

"Is it weird?" she asked. "I didn't see a single girl walking like this… so is it wrong? Do men here mind?"

Well, his King certainly wouldn't, that she could rest assured, and he was pretty sure Sharrkan wouldn't, either. Which meant majority of men probably wouldn't.

Ja'far would make a fuss, but Ja'far did that about a lot of things.

"Not really," he decided. Just in case, though, better give her a heads up. It does depend on where you want to go."

That seemed to perk her up a little. Ear-to-ear grin spread on her face as she straightened, remnants of fish oil dripping down her chin. "Really? Then, what about the castle?! Love of my life didn't seem to mind last time, then certainly he'll be thrilled!" And much to his growing unease, the girl's grin widened more, if that was even possible, a spark of recognition flaring. "Wait! I know you! I knew I've seen you before, you're one of his friends! Oh, oh! You can take me there, right?! I wouldn't even need proper introductions! This is brilliant!"

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Masrur blinked faintly, already feeling a headache building up. Yeah, it would be just like his king to run into an exhibitionist fish-girl when drunk and make promises he had no intention to keep. _On the bright side, at least this one isn't married_. He hoped.

Red eyes narrowed suspiciously, almost accusing. 'You know something,' they seemed to say.

"No," he said, flatly. Because if experience had taught him anything, it was to not get in the way of crazy girls pining after his king. Especially if those girls were crazy fish-girls. He'd had enough nightmares about red tails and sharp tridents after Sinbad's last underwater misadventure to last him a lifetime. Messing with fish-girls was a no-no. Big no. _Huge_ no.

Even if they were very cute fish-girls.

Slowly, Masrur stood up, careful not to draw the wrong kind of attention on her part. If he pulled this off right, then maybe he could keep his sanity intact and his tactical retreat a secret. Even if the fish-girl was now glaring at him with even more suspicion. "Where are you going? You didn't answer my question."

"I, uh… have to catch more fish."

He bolted.

* * *

Two hours later found Masrur standing at one of the lesser-known entrances into the castle, face burning, though he desperately hoped it didn't show, with one very energetic fish-girl wrapped into a borrowed toga hanging off his shoulder.

Okay. So maybe he didn't have the heart of stone to leave her in the woods, alone and hungry and naked. Obviously not, when she knew exactly who he was, had apparently been there to see how funny his face looked underwater and how much the dolphins loved playing with him and he loved playing with them in return.

So yes, maybe he didn't have the iron will to turn around and ignore a desperate call for help. Even if it came from a lunch-thief who happened to have an unhealthy obsession with love and misguided belief that his king would remember anything more than her tits. Even if common sense dictated that running from it was precisely what he should've done.

One thing was for sure, though. He would _not_ be caught dead in the middle of this.

Even if he had to avoid the castle for _weeks_.

"We're here," she mouthed, breathless, and more than a little amazed, as she stared up at the tower, and up and up and _up_. If her eyes could fall out of her sockets, Masrur was pretty sure that by now, they would've. "We're actually _here,_ " she breathed. "I'm here! I made it! Thank you, Mister Red Lion!"

Standing opposite them, Sharrkan and Pisti stared, with the amount of confusion Masrur would expect from anyone who had had the fortune to skip on the visit to the underwater colonies. Except, the confusion didn't go away after a few moments, and they kept starting at now sweat-dropping Masrur, then the misty-eyed fish-girl, then back to Masrur, before the expert swordsman and womanizer-wannabe finally snapped out of it. "Uh, Masrur, what the hell—"

Masrur tossed the girl at him, and ran like hell.


End file.
